With Katie, Wren, Randall, and Amanda
Each spring, our community comes together to re-energize the Web of Connection that holds us all. We honor our connections to the sacred Earth, nourishing each other with song, food, learning, fire, ritual, and celebration. Our collective choice to build a different culture, a culture that embraces flexibility, understanding, building relationships (and repairing them when there is conflict), means that we need to examine that culture, and ourselves, from time to time.
Everyone’s relationship to food is different. Some enjoy the process of cooking, some experience a deep sense of gratitude when others prepare a meal for them. Some people have a wide palate, some have favorite foods that they enjoy each day.
Think of eating at the Dining Hall as if you were going to a family member’s home for dinner, rather than to a restaurant. There may be meals that don’t especially work for you, but we do our best to make sure that no one is left hungry. The love that goes into the food is the best flavoring we would ask for.
At Rites of Spring we offer a variety of workshops. Some will be workshops you can’t wait to attend. Others might not be your favorites, but we often learn something from those too. Sometimes workshops we don’t expect to like stretch us in ways that we hadn’t foreseen, but which we value for years. Similarly, some meals will be your favorites, and we’re thrilled. Others will nourish you, and perhaps, will stretch your palates in delightful ways! I often come home with a new favorite meal. Last year it was fish tacos.
The meals at Rites of Spring are provided by volunteer members of our community who offer their time and expertise to create delicious food for all of us. The Kitchen Crew have a unique challenge: presenting delicious, healthful options for a wide array of dietary needs. It is not possible to cater to the myriad of dietary preferences as well.
I had the pleasure of sitting down with our chefs recently and I wanted to share some of the conversation we had.
What is your favorite part about nourishing the community at Rites of Spring?
Being of service. It is a real privilege to be able to support the community in connecting and co-creating the event. It is a calling, to be sure. Each member of the core kitchen team (and several others who work with us as volunteers or on work exchange) is there for love of the craft and an opportunity to create delicious food outside of the trappings of commercial food service, where profit and prestige often obscure or deny the elements of human connection and hospitality.
The truth is that hospitality is a spiritual pursuit in and of itself. And over the course of several years, we have endeavored to align ourselves more and more with that. I can think of no better way to express a love for humanity than in feeding a community gathering such as Rites of Spring.
Many of us have become so close family-wise, that working as a team is its own reward, and then we can show the community how we make it work in case anyone wants to come learn, or share in the creating with us.
What is the most challenging part?
There are two challenges worth noting, here. One is that the location itself creates limitations. We have to plan everything out in advance and the food orders are placed before anyone is on the mountain; and our last delivery is on Thursday before everyone has even made it up to camp. The weather is a significant variable as well. If the forecast takes an unexpected turn, we could run out of coffee a day or two early or end up with 3 cases of half and half that no one wants. Sometimes we just get shorted important ingredients due to warehouse inventory errors, and we have to make last minute menu changes.
On top of that we have no idea year after year what condition the camp kitchen will be in, what (if anything) will need repairs, or whether this year’s camp staff will need to be trained on proper dish sanitation. We are the first major event at the camp every year, and they often discover while we’re there whatever damage winter may have wrought.
Second, given how important this work is, it can sometimes be a drag when we are unable to participate as fully as we would like in other aspects of the gathering… Dinner needs to be served on time regardless of how skilled or efficient the last two shifts worth of volunteers were, and it doesn’t always leave time for a workshop.
If we fall behind on prep due to missed shifts or holes in the schedule, (it happens sometimes), we can end up working well into the night to catch up. But the show must go on; people need to eat. So we do what we have to do to feed them.
Our group is tight-knit and “we do what we have to do.” Sometimes we can be so focused on the spirit of that statement that we work too hard or we neglect the rest of why we’re at Rites of Spring and don’t connect to the gathering or the community around us as fully as we’d like to. It is difficult to remember to survive AND to thrive, and when we do manage the chaos, we create an awesome part of the gathering that feels so fulfilling in the end. The silver lining here, though, is that this has actually created a really beautiful bond between us. We stay in touch all year and even have our own discord server.
What do you wish people knew about the kitchen at Rites of Spring?
That everyone in there, including camp staff, is a member of our community. Every member of the core team is generously volunteering full-time labor to support the event. It’s not glamorous work but we make it fun, and there are a lot of opportunities to learn and connect there. It’s not just about food, either. In many respects, the kitchen is the social hub of the gathering; a great equalizer where we’re all on the same level. And so it becomes a vehicle through which we can share our love in a very concrete way.
What are some ways people can help?
There are a few things people can do:
- First, please understand that we’ll do our best to meet anyone’s needs, but individual preferences and complex dietary restrictions are really difficult to accommodate fully in an all volunteer organizational structure. We simply do not have the person-power or facilities to do it. So, be empowered to take care of yourself when the daily offerings are insufficiently joyful to you!
Come prepared with safe proteins, meal supplements, etc. (and a means to safely store them), because we do what we can to make sure everyone can be well fed, but we can also acknowledge that eating only from the salad bar all week is demoralizing for some. - Second, if you have free time and you’re looking for something to do, ask if you can help! We often do have extra things people can help with, and we will not let you stay bored if we do.
- Third, and finally, showing up on time and ready to work for your volunteer shift is obviously huge; with hair tied back, close-toed shoes on, and sober. That isn’t to say that we can’t be understanding when things come up, but it really helps when folks can communicate with us ahead of time if they’re sick or having a personal emergency.
Our Web of Community is both physical when we weave it together on Saturday at the mountain, and physical in the people we see, the conversations we have, the hands we hold, the food we share, the songs we sing, and the week we spend together at Rites of Spring. Let’s remember to keep the strands of that web strong by speaking with kindness to each other, being flexible when we’re feeling tugged at by strands on all sides, and by trying new things.
See you at the Dining Hall!
In the Spirit of the Earth,
Katie LaFond, Board of Directors, The EarthSpirit Community
And, the Kitchen Crew: Randall, Amanda, and Wren